#but mina and van helsing are the only ones that are like actually smart and can figure shit out

[prettyboysmlm]

wait nO QUINCY-

[vickyvicarious]

why are you people hyping up jonathan harker he was fucking useless LMAOOOOOOO

just on the background while the doctors always did actual work and had insight and schemes and godalming and morris used their $$$

meanwhile he just fell on his knees crying I DEFY YOU STARS OH MY DOOMED LOVE

Oh, anon. I know I probably should just ignore you. However, I first of all find this ask very funny, and secondly you are giving me a golden opportunity to brag about my boy, here. I'm definitely gonna take it.

Behold - an incomplete list of things Jonathan Harker has done:

survived for months alone in Dracula's castle, maintaining a delicate balance of not rocking the boat too far and getting killed, but never giving up fully/seizing every chance to try and learn more or find a way out (letters, wall-climbing, etc.)

the only person to harm Dracula (shovel scar) and live (the only others were Renfield and Quincey, both of whom died the same day). the only person to hit him more than once (shovel, cut his coat open, sliced off his head). one of the two people who killed him (sliced off his head if you missed that one)

escaped by climbing down a castle wall and fleeing on foot through mountains full of wolves, without any warm clothes

was the person to recognize Dracula in London, and to direct the group to Carfax

did literally all of the footwork required to track down Dracula's boxes. began this task on his own without being given direction, and was well underway on it before even linking up with the others. (insight!)

bribery! lots of bribery! using his own inherited money at least part of the time ($$$!)

also, lied to/tricked various sources that he was either still Dracula's attorney, or utilized Arthur's status, to get information (schemes!)

suggested to a surprised Seward that Renfield may be reacting to Dracula and is "a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count." (insight!)

was van helsing's biggest primary source confirming what his research said about vampires, as seen in big speech day when he told everyone 'vampires do this (as seen in Jonathan's diary)' like five separate times

was the first to move to attack Dracula on October 3 (at his house not the asylum), galvanizing everyone else into action

um, kinda a big thing that he never considered his love doomed? like. yeah. willing to go to hell/become a vampire himself to stay with Mina. willing to doom everyone else for his love if necessary but never to give up on that. fell on his knees (I'll grant you) immediately... to comfort Mina when she felt unclean. set aside his immediate impulse towards revenge in order to comfort her first.

but also. very much willing to act to prevent such an outcome? urged everyone else to get on the move so he could go kill Dracula for everything he'd done?

nonetheless, didn't put his personal catharsis/revenge above the goal. was willing to take a backseat for the sake of success in the initial plan and just play guard rather than insisting on being the one to stake/behead him.

...honorable mention again for beheading him anyway in the end. Jonathan literally killed Dracula, bud. (fucking useful!)

I love all the main characters, and am not interested in devaluing anyone's contributions. The doctors are very smart (among other things) and important. Arthur and Quincey are very rich (among other things) and important. Mina, who you failed to mention, is extremely clever (among other things) and important as well. Jonathan, surprise surprise... is also all of those things!

And I love him. He's been my favorite character since my first time reading this book long ago. I (don't actually) regret to inform you that Dracula Daily has only increased that love, as well as vindicated it by seeing many other people agree that he's a great character really screwed over by adaptations, and thus even if I were generally inclined to feel upset about these kinds of messages, this'd still miss the mark. Rather, I thank you for the opportunity to reflect on some of the many ways Jonathan was an integral part of this vampire-hunting team.

[strangestcase]

Maybe I’m being uncharitable but how come all the Dracula Daily meta is JONATHAN IS SUCH A COOL GUY HE LOVES HIS WIFE AND HES SO STRONG AND HE LOVES HIS WIFE AND HES SO BRAVE AND SO AMAZING AND HE REALLY FUCKING LOVES HIS WIFE. DID I MENTION HE LOVES HIS WIFE. Yeah okay. And about that wife of his. Do you think of her at all. Do you acknowledge her as anything other than one half of a “power couple”. Like. You know Mina Murray is a human being with a personality and an independent will, right? You claim to love her and yet… Where are the lengthy analysis posts calling her so strong and so brave and so smart and so brilliant… where are the lengthy analysis posts pointing out how adaptations flatten her to nothing… about the injustice of popular culture reading her rape as romance… where is the fanart of her going batshit insane with a weapon… the RESPECT for her request to be killed because she’d rather be dead alone than undead with Jonathan. The APPRECIATION for her personality. Mentions of her as something more than the sexy lamp a blown up caricature of Jonathan can slobber for, a loving tumor on his muscular side, an adoring aside in his distortion from a brave average Joe into Pop Culture Van Helsing 2 But More Macho. Like… guys…… how come the tags are clogged with idiots claiming Jonathan is the Most Violent And Unhinged Member Of The Cast, which is patently false, yet the ACTUAL protagonist only gets the occasional “uuugh she loves trains and her husband”. Do you REALLY like Mina?

[see-arcane]

This made me realise that Mina uses "my __" a lot (my Jonathan, my beloved husband, my dear one) compared to him doing so no wonder she'd be not pleased if someone tried to snatch him away

The thing about Jonathan and Mina is that they are both very much more than the standard 'in love' with each other that you'll see in a lot of Mandatory Love Interests in media. They're not just in love.

They're in crush.

They're in infatuation.

They're in 'my beloved is all that matters and dear God I don't know how I got lucky enough to win the romance lottery to convince them I was worthy, but I will spend every second of every day trying to earn that love.'

The main difference lays somewhere in--sigh along with me--the gender politics of it all. Because the thing is, even if we barely squint at the time period (and, sadly, even at our modern relationship pitfalls), Mina is very, very aware that, by partner standards, she is the one who got the 'luckier' pull. Specifically because Stoker wrote Jonathan as the rule-breaking, love worshipping, refusing-to-other or abandon champion of a Prince Charming out of the whole cast; and possibly out of most male romantic leads in the era's literature, Period.

Meanwhile, despite Mina being very much her own breakthrough of early feminism and interesting traits--again, sighing over the New Woman commentary, but still--when we look past the unique/strong/smart character facets, we really see a lot of the Classic Darling Female Love Interest formula at her core. She is sweet and caring and loving and loved.

As all good non-hag non-femme fatale characters were at the time. You can't throw a rock in Victorian and earlier lit without hitting a similarly winsome young lady. They pop up like charming weeds.

It's Jonathan Harker who stands apart. Jonathan Harker who loves unconditionally, who does not conform to classic masculine heroism, who would fight God and the Devil to hold his beloved above all harm, who would damn himself, who would kill and die to keep his beloved safe and happy. Who would--gasp!--rather be equal with his partner, even preferring to let her take the lead!

Which was un-fucking-heard of at the time. Even if she/Stoker weren't really caught up on what New Women actually stood for, I'd bet money that Mina knew exactly how rare a prize like Mr. Harker was in a sea of brutes and cheats and general misogynistic louts looking for a housemaid they could imprison with a wedding band and belittle on a daily basis before they go out to meet mistresses 1-3.

Mina is not an idiot. Jonathan is not either, but I think he is blessedly naïve enough to think there was anyone else in the world who would champion Mina as much as he does, as much as she deserves. She's Mina, for crying out loud! An angel! A goddess in and of herself! Who wouldn't adore her as he does? And to Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad's credit, they do come close, risking what they do...

But they do make that murder oath.

And for that, Mina is grateful. She did ask for it.

But though she never writes it, maybe only rarely dares to even think it--such a blasphemous, selfish thought!--she is doubly grateful that Jonathan never swore with them. Proof positive, that. Somewhere in her, a secret proud voice whispers:

Look, Mina Harker née Murray. Look at the paragon among lovers you have tricked into loving you and being your knight. You have wed Eros himself, lucky Psyche that you are. He does not even realize what a treasure he is. The one treasure that matters. The one which evil powers have tried so hard to steal away. Do not let them, Mina. Let them have gold and magic and your own blood if they must, but never, ever him.

So yes.

All this in mind, it is very little wonder that she enjoys referring to Jonathan as my husband, my love, my darling. My, my, my, mine, mine, mine. Hearing and saying it is a reassurance that she has not woken up from this sweet dream. Just as I'm sure Jonathan saying the same--or else repeating Mina's name like his own prayer--reassures him. They are real, they are in love, they are each other's.

And so when someone like Miss Helen Penelosa comes along and Mina catches wind of her plans for Jonathan, I can't not see her loading that revolver.

[spider-xan]

I've already written a post about how some of the reactions today are reminding me of the way people reacted to Jonathan early in the novel's run (and I mean beyond memes and 'Aaah, nooo, look behind you!!' horror audience reactions), and this is just going to be an off-the-cuff rambling post rather than detailed, structured meta, but seeing posts contrasting Mina positively against Jack, re: believing in vampires are so interesting to me bc I definitely remember when even MINA was getting called stupid for not realizing Lucy was being attacked by a vampire back in Whitby and trying to rationalize her experiences!

Like, I have not forgotten people being like, 'Wow, Mina thinks the two holes on Lucy's neck are from her safety pin? That's so stupid, they are OBVIOUSLY vampire bites bc that's the only thing two holes on the throat could be! How can she think a little safety pin can do that?' (it was probably a larger shawl pin), and 'Mina saw someone with red eyes, but she's claiming it must have been a trick of the light? It's obviously real, how can she just ignore a red-eyed vampire right in front of her?' It was to a lesser extent than Jonathan bc she was otherwise bold and proactive, but even Mina, as smart and perceptive as she is, didn't immediately recognize she was dealing with a vampire, and that's understandable with the very little information and paradigm she was dealing with. I think we should also remember that while she believed Jonathan's trauma and was perceptive enough to take his journal seriously just in case, she still had doubts about the objective truth and wondered if it was a brain fever issue, and she only recently fully accepted the truth, with one of her data points being an encounter with Dracula himself, so she was predisposed to believe Van Helsing.

Obviously, I get that the understandable frustration with Jack is that he's had so much more information thrown at him, and he's still deeply in denial and taking refuge in rationality (but it's perfectly consistent with his character, and believable in terms of actual human behaviour), but I'm also like, hmm, yeah, even fan favourite Mina once got hit with being called stupid for rationalizing her experiences in a way that makes sense for someone who thinks they're in a world where vampires aren't real.

[arbitrarity]

Predictions for the Dracula Daily Bracket!

To start, I agree wholeheartedly with the qualifier results: the zookeeper and the correspondent are both top notch. For some of the others, I think it might depend on if we're deciding on a favourite character/popularity or actual 'sexy' status.

Count Dracula vs Arthur Holmwood: right off the bat (pun not intended, but I'll take it!) we have a fight that depends on what the vote is for. I think Drac wins for sexiness (in the tumblr definition) since Arthur is more sweet, devoted, but a little bland. His appeal is mostly in his relations to others than in his own right, while seeing Drac getting bumped out of the contest so quickly would be surprising since he has serious Character status. So while I in no way find him sexy, I think Drac is the best bet

Jack Seward vs Captain of the Demeter: ooo, the captain is pretty awesome and his death was heart rending, so I think he'll get a chunk of the votes. but Jack, while hated by some, is both pathetic and highly shippable. So my bet is on Jack

Mr Swales vs First Mate of the Demeter: no contest - Mr Swales. there is no sexiness to him, but I can't imagine the sus first mate beating him!

R. M. Renfield vs Thomas Bilder: Renfield, for sure. Thomas Bilder was the obvious choice in the qualifier but won almost assuredly because of Bersicker/Berserker (and my housemate points out that maybe the wolf himself could be a contender for sexyman), while Renfield has so much more to him, as a character and in the story

Jonathan Harker vs News Correspondent: again a little bit of a tough choice. Jonathan should win for sure if it's an 'I love him, your honour' situation, but does he have sex appeal?? the correspondent, with his speedy running and unhinged method of reporting on weather/murder, has more 'i want to kiss you on the mouth' energy. we haven't seen how Jonathan might react to Drac's return yet though, and i feel like theres a lot of potential there. so.... gonna predict Jonathan

Quincey Morris vs Abraham van Helsing: it's gotta be the cowboy, right? he's got sexiness all 'round, despite barely entering the story so far. Van Helsing sure is something and has got to have more discourse about him, good and bad, but can anyone deny Quincey P. Morris as sexyman? I feel like he's got the best shot at winning the title on his own merits out of everyone

Mina Harker née Murray vs The Brides of Dracula: PFFT! Mina! Oh course!! those weed smoking girlfriends have nothing on our beloved protagonist, sweet smart and strong in one!

Lucy Westenra vs “The Bloofer Lady”: omg we just read about the Bloofer Lady today. this is so cruel. too soon 🥺😭 Lucy is definitely the fav for me but I don't know how the rest of the story will play out .... I can only hope Lucy will triumph

that's all for now! hoping to write out my predictions again when we reach the next bracket level

[krystal-prisms]

Here we are lads, new post in my Dracula binge adventure. I'm on post number 3 and adaptation number fuck if I know. A lot.

So this one is Dracula 3000 (2004). Presumably different than Dracula 2000. Hopefully better, but we'll have to see.

This is set in the future, in space, which is a vibe. Right out of the gate I'm giving it not a lot on accuracy so we're going based purely on vibes, which are as we've gone on, the rating system that I have developed.

We've got Abraham van Helsing, captain. Arthur Holmwood, "The Professor" who is apparently not that smart, Mina Murray, the navigator, who is also apparently not good at her job. These are all the original characters. This is gonna be a wild ride.

Point for acknowledging that Arthur exists. I think they actually meant to make him Seward though.

I will say that it's interesting how they did the Demeter and are setting up the conflict, with the Demeter being an abandoned space ship and the main characters having to investigate it. The corpse is cool too how they tied it to the book. The hair is way way too long though.

I am obsessed with the effects and the filming of this, the angles and transitions are everything.

I'm getting real Among Us vibes from this. There sure as hell is an imposter here.

Obsessed with the fact that the ship is Space Communist. Also that Transylvania is an entire planet of vampires and that Dracula is the last one cause the planet is dead. Like no shit, a planet of fully vampires is not sustainable, there's no food source.

I admire the crew's dedication to guns, even after multiple demonstrations that it is completely ineffective.

How and why on earth did Vampire Mina get makeup where 1) they are in the middle of space on a 50 year old ship in the middle of deep space 2) why would her priority to be put on makeup and lie in a coffin instead of going to go eat the rest of the crew and 3) why didn't the dudes get a makeover.

I do appreciate how they made van Helsing descended from famous vampire hunters, and all bad ass I'm gonna kill these fuckers and then immediately get his ass handed to him by Dracula and turned into a vampire, and then immediately staked. He was giving Last Guy In A Horror Movie energy but nope, not today. Lol.

Point(?) for managing to to make every single character so profoundly and fundamentally unlikable in completely different ways. Like, everyone here sucks ass so hard, it's hilarious.

Also, in this scenario there's no downside for just. Letting Dracula suck your blood. Like, you don't Die die, you just turn into a vampire and become slightly more feral. Like, it's either turn into a vampire or be stuck on a ship being hunted, just cut your losses, man.

Ok no but that ending, I'm in love with it. Most of the crew was a vampire, then stabbed. Dracula got his arm cut off in a door. The only surviving guy left and the badass girlboss who was actually a government sent robot but before that was a pleasure bot leave to go fuck. There's a recording of the former captain of the Demeter from 50 years ago says he has to sacrifice himself and the ship. 50 years in the future I guess. The ship blows up. The end. Perfect. Classic. Beautiful ending. No complaints.

So overall, for accuracy it's like, in the negatives. None to speak of. However, in terms of vibes, despite all the characters being completely and utterly loathsome, I did like it. It wasn't supposed to be funny, but it sure as hell was. 7.5/10 it wasn't good, but it sure was a good time.

[eolewyn1010]

Oh, wow, our Victorian himbo makes another entry! Didn't think that'd happen. Hi, Jonathan! Mina tells him of what went down, and having van Helsing confirm all the horrors Jonathan went through as a reality, he can finally be sure of his own mind again and starts to feel better. So of course, van Helsing is delighted to get another virile young specimen of healthy man meat. Eh, anyway, they get on like a house on fire, especially in their opinion that Mina is just the bee's knees. Jonathan hands him all the papers that might be of interest regarding Dracula, the three of them have breakfast together and then Jonathan sees van Helsing off at the station. Van Helsing is upset about the newspaper articles; he should know of Lucy's postmortem activity now. And he's still speaking German, not Dutch...

Jonathan is not the only one who has picked up on his diary habits again; Jack is back to journaling, too. Renfield is back to flies and spiders and apparently behaving well enough, Arthur and Quincey have written from their gay little mutual comfort party and seem to be recovering okay-ish, Jack uses odd words again - his pain over Lucy has become "cicatrised"? Had to look that one up. But then van Helsing comes back with newspapers and is all, "call in the dude squad; your shared girlfriend is a vampire!" Jack doesn't catch on immediately, he just thinks the kids' puncture wounds have a common cause with Lucy's, and when van Helsing finally gets to facts, Jack has a hard time believing him. Van Helsing even chastises him for being too narrow-minded and not having cottoned on - DUDE. You knew all the time and didn't open your friggin' mouth! There's a lot of bs from Victorian para-sciences, and I hope Stoker didn't believe half of what he wrote into van Helsing's mouth there. Jack asks to be his "pet student" again. That's... kinky? Or sycophantic. He has van Helsing run him through the entire explanation, and is left baffled.

Van Helsing takes him for a visit to the latest kid Lucy has hurt, and then to the cemetery to see Lucy. Who has made quite an impression on her kids-for-drink btw; the hurt child just wants to go see her again. After that, van Helsing buys Jack dinner and brings him for some twosome time to the Westenra tomb. Ehm, okay, not so twosome. Also, sperm from van Helsing's candle dripped down in white patches? Sperm?? When has that ever been synonymous with wax? I can't even make a queer dreams joke; this is just weird. Oh, Lucy's coffin is empty; that's also weird, I suppose. Jack correctly deduces that the absence of the corpse means only that the corpse is not there. Way to go, smart guy. Then it's churchyard watching time and I wanna point out that Jack is seeking cover under a yew tree, so he might be inhaling taxines and be not quite there. He's also getting pissed at van Helsing. Eventually they see a child slipping into the cemetery, and van Helsing brings it out again deeply asleep. Lucy hasn't had the time to hurt the kid and... these fucking idiots don't even hand it over to the police! Because they don't wanna make statements on how they found the child (that's not sus at all, you guys), they just leave it lying around somewhere a policeman can find it once they've gotten away! Assholes!

Van Helsing wants to take out Jack for another date soon, but Jack is not too thrilled, and frankly, I agree. This was a moronic nightly enterprise. Does Abe actually think this is convincing of anything, really??

[bramblepatch]

I posted 5,646 times in 2022

That's 1,199 more posts than 2021!

117 posts created (2%)

5,529 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@rukafais

@queenofthefaces

@amusedmuralist

@pavlovs-pigeon

@beetlelesbian

I tagged 1,362 of my posts in 2022

#legend of drizzt - 98 posts

#dracula daily - 37 posts

#jarlaxle baenre - 29 posts

#ofmd - 27 posts

#brambleart - 22 posts

#lotr - 22 posts

#kimmuriel oblodra - 20 posts

#goncharov - 20 posts

#jarlaxle - 19 posts

#drizzt do'urden - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#my changeling the lost pc kit adopted its own fetch because it looked at fake teenage it and was like 'that's a little sibling right there'

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Van Helsing, finding Mina's letters among Lucy's papers: oh so THAT'S who the smart one is in this group of chucklefucks

1,121 notes - Posted September 24, 2022

#4

Even accounting for him not knowing he is in the novel Dracula, the amount of red flags Jonathan is overlooking is staggering and it's only day 2.

1,713 notes - Posted May 4, 2022

#3

I love that in DnD there are monsters that are classified by how fucked up they are. Like there's specific shit like fiends and constructs and dragons and so on, but there's also like... Ok that's maybe a little weird but it's still basically an animal, that's a beast. That one's bad to look at and extremely good at killing us and we think a wizard might be responsible, but it still more or less makes sense, that one's a monstrosity. And over here, we don't know what the fuck is going on with this one and we're too afraid to ask, let's just call it an aberration and move on.

4,567 notes - Posted April 4, 2022

#2

really enjoying how fandom tumblr's pretentions to sophistication, profound weakness for useless men, and inability to be normal about anything for five minutes have all converged and resulted in us declaring Jonathan Harker our new collective blorbo

8,004 notes - Posted May 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

the linguistic shift from "avatar" or "icon" to "pfp" is bad actually. bring back the implications of ritual significance. cowards.

60,649 notes - Posted April 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[thenightling]

Review of Asylum’s Dracula: The Original living vampire

  Review of Asylum’s Dracula: The Original living vampire: I decided to check out the Asylum Mockbuster “Dracula: The Original living vampire” which is their “Mockbuster” of Morbius (released March 31st 2022).

The acting in Dracula: The original living vampire is so bad, so phoned in that it is almost impressive. But then again these actors know they’re working for Asylum, which isn’t exactly known for quality.  

In this film Amelia Van Helsing is the skeptic.  She is in a relationship with Mina.  At first I was intrigued by the idea of a lesbian Van Helsing but no. They gave the traditional Van Helsing personality to Jonathan Harker, played by Ryan Woodcock.  With a name like that I can make a pretty good guess what kind of movies this man was probably used to doing.  So there goes the one chance of something actually clever coming out of this.

The costumes and sets are of an indistinct time period. It’s hard to orientate myself to whatever era this is supposed to be. Michael Ironside as Jack Seward, is the only actor who I recognize the name of. That poor guy really knows how to pick some winners. He was in Highlander 2...  And he has such great dialogue was “Amelia... get this son of a bitch.”  

The Dracula actor would be attractive except for the fact that he always looks like he is smelling something bad and  his voice doesn’t seem to match his look, like the voice was dubbed in later and it is a bit distracting. 

Renfield is the chief of police. The nerd who actually is incline to believe in the supernatural is Jonathan Harker, which makes Amelia Van Helsing all the more disappointing.

Dracula specifically targets redheads and surprise, surprise, Mina is not a natural blond.  She’s actually a redhead.     

Honestly, the better low budget Dracula movie of this year was The Invitation from Sony Pictures.  I actually rather liked The Invitation.  It had cliches but it was certainly better than this.

I can’t tell what year this is set in.  In one scene they’re using kerosine lamps, in another they’re talking about DNA analysis, and wearing wrist watches.   But no one has a smart phone or TV.   It’s surreal and fantastical.   I kind of like that, where it is hard to tell what time period or location this is meant to be.   It’s impossible to orientate yourself to what time period this is and I think that’s deliberate.

Amelia Van Helsing is a detective.  Her lover, Mina, is the solicitor.  Dr. Seward is the coroner (and for some reason most characters pronounce his name as “Sea-ward”), and Harker is the occultist nerd who behaves sadly more like Van Helsing than Van Helsing, herself.  My hopes for a lady Van Helsing who dresses a bit like the traditional male character were compromised.

One thing that was a pleasant surprise though was seeing Dracula turn to mist and bats.  I was surprised that Asylum splurged on that.

The film got fun in the last twenty minutes but even so I still think The Invitation from Sony pictures was the better low budget Dracula film. I did like that Asylum actually let Dracula turn into bats and mist.  You don’t see that too often with the low budget stuff.

 Though this was schlock there were some creative ideas behind it. It was probably the best Asylum film I’ve ever seen.  I know that’s not saying much since Asylum isn’t know for its quality but this had some good ideas. Van Helsing as a woman, Mina as a lesbian.  A timeless setting similar to a Tim Burton Batman movie only somewhere between 1890s to 1990s.   

Harker mentioned that there are blood rituals that could revive Dracula.  If Asylum wanted to this could turn into their Hammer-esque Dracula franchise.  

For what it was I’d say it wasn’t so bad.  Maybe a 6.5 out of ten, overall and an 8 when compared to other Asylum films (as opposed to actual quality film production companies).  

[kindaeccentric]

When I was writing my university bachelor's degree thesis (that I'm still to defend) about Penny Dreadful as a modern adaptation of Frankenstein I noticed how the original novel's homoeroticism is realized by the series in an interesting way.

In the way he is presented, it seems to me that Victor secretly desires men, but thinks that only through creating a perfect one by himself he's allowed to touch other man's skin. His endeavour to pierce the veil between life and death is an excuse, since Victor from the series grew up lonely after the death of his mother and he searches for companionship, for someone who would love him unconditionally, like his mother used to. He believes he can find such love only in a person he creates himself, brings from the dead, and who would see him as his only friend, calm and obedient. Yet his first instinct is to make a man, not a woman, and a handsome man at that.

I can imagine both Rory Kinnear and Alex Price are not everybody's cup of tea (I do find them attractive, they are quite charismatic), but the way the original Creature and Proteus are shown makes them attractive. Proteus we see through Victor's eyes, when he is tending to his body before its even reanimated, when he sketches him (a sure sign of affection) and when he teaches him how to eat in a way that becomes seductive, because of how the camera lingers on his lips and then, in a closeup, on his fingers running down his long throat, immediately bringing to mind erotic imagery. Some may argue that Victor tries to emulate the relationship between his mother and himself taking the parental role and projecting onto Proteus the role of his childhood self, and as much as it is partially true, their relationship bears these marks of hidden desire on Victor's part from the start. The image at the end of the first episode when Proteus is born shows Victor trembling, teary-eyed, looking at the body, a torn and stitched back together, but human body, of a naked man. He's afraid, but not necessarily of the man, but of finally getting what he wanted, it's a fear resulting from excitement. Then the man is touching his face tenderly and Victor, still trembling, cannot stop himself from a little smile. Their faces are softly illuminated by the orange light of the gas lamp, creating an intimate atmosphere of a warm bedroom. Victor practically gasps hearing his own name smoken by Proteus. I doubt all of it was intentional in the way I read it, but it doesn't change the fact that the final scene can be easily interpreted this way.

Then the original Creature, with the violence surrounding his return, presents him as highly masculine, smart, powerful, a direct opposite to the delicate, clueless Proteus Victor could easily form into whatever he wanted. The Creature throughout the entire series is perceived as ugly by some and easily tolerated by others, making his ugliness purely subjective, since, despite his small deformities he remains strangely alluring with his gothic qualities (black long hair, black lips, white skin, yellow eyes, proportional features) of a dark brooding gentleman. With blood on his face he becomes vampire-like (vampires always a symbol of hidden desires and 'depraved' sexuality, the Creature and Victor becoming a mirror image of Vanessa and vampire Mina, both Creature's and Mina's monstrosity an indirect result of Victor's and Vanessa's desire towards having a same-sex companion). The Creature touches Victor's face, a callback to Proteus doing it, but the Creature is not gentle, he smears blood all over Victor's face (blood in vampire narratives was always a symbol for other bodily fluids, that's why it seems so sexy, it also gained another meaning in the 80s, due to the HIV epidemic, which no filmmaker can shake off if they tried, I could discuss it more with The Lost Boys, but no time for that right now).

The dynamic between Victor and the Creature is a reversal of Victor's budding relationship with Proteus, experience winning over innocence. Victor is under another man's rule, and it terrifies him, because it would force him into a position of having to admit his attraction, whereas as the one in control he could have still easily deny it. The Creature, with all his attributes, symbolizes carnal love, he's all 'body', where Proteus was virginal, pious love (to an extent). In one of the scenes where we see Proteus he looks up into the skylight at Victor's apartment and appears angelic, as if in a halo of white light.

It's revealed Victor never had a woman, and the series wants the viewer to believe it's because of his awkwardness and passion for science that consumed him, but his dedication to creating himself male companions instead of searching for a living female one is exactly what makes him seem more queer coded.

It's clear that the lack of paternal figure results in Victor quickly becoming close with older men he encounters (Sir Malcolm, Van Helsing), but it also puts him into a position where he's constantly surrounded by men, with whom he feels more at ease, and is intimidated by women. The rivalry between him and Ethan is that of siblings, until the moment when Ethan teaches him how to shoot a gun. It might be a stretch (it is a bit of a stretch, I admit), but a gun often, especially in horror, alongside a knife, represents manhood and masculine power. Victor allows Ethan to touch him and encourages him to show off with the gun, which is a scene all too familiar from many other movies where the role of Victor is reserved for a woman and the interaction is flirtatious (can't pull examples out of thin air, but if you saw over 1400 movies like me you know I'm not lying). All this adds to the general image of Victor.

The Creature and Victor, when they are on a walk, have a very revealing conversation in which the Creature points out how quick Victor was to grow attached to his more perfect man, and Victor doesn't deny it, he admits that he did in fact feel affection towards Proteus, although the meaning of it as the scorned past partner expressing jealousy over the love he didn't get while someone else did is largely subtext. When the Creature says that he's lonely, Victor answers 'I cannot love you' (paraphrase, because I can't find the exact quote right now) and the Creature, disillusioned, mocks him, 'I do not want what you cannot give' suggesting that Victor, by making himself a meek obedient man, is selfish, cruel, manipulating, and a coward, therefore could not have loved Proteus truly. Then again, Victor cannot bring himself to love his original Creature, because he's not the ideal man he envisioned and by then the Creature being too aware of his flaws of character. The Creature/Caliban/John Clare knows that Victor is 'monstrous', not just because he's someone who desecrates dead bodies, plays God and abandons his creation, but because of his queer desire. It's important that in the case of Penny Dreadful 'monstrosity' signifies many different things, literal (being a vampire werewolf, witch, and so on), metaphorical (bad deeds, like letting your son die a horrible death, cheating, killing etc.) and wholy subjective, merely condemned by ignorant society (Sembene's blackness, Brona's sex work, Lily's want to be equal or greater than men, Vanessa's want for sexual freedom, the Creature's ugliness, Angelique being transgender and other cases), so it's NOT that much of a stretch this time.

We also have the whole problem with Lily. Victor is so attached to Lily (who takes up both Elizabeth's and creature's bride parts in the novel) because he believes that only by possessing a good woman he'll be redeemed for his 'sinful' desires, but he's foolish to think that. This belief reduces a woman to a semi-maternal, semi-virginal angelic ideal with no sexual urges or agency, like virgin Mary. Lily is a true replacement for Victor's mother, and his imagined redemption. As long as she's similar to Proteus, in that she's not sexual, and pure like an angel. Yet Lily is not a woman in that sense. She is another of Victor's creatures, so she partially also takes over the role of the original Creature from the novel, a male. She's not an ideal of a Victorian obedient wife, she has power, or tries to have it, but power in the context of patriarchal society is masculine by nature. The moment she drops her pretenses of a weak delicate wife-like girl Victor does not want her like this. He doesn't want a woman that is sexually liberated, because he doesn't like women in this way, and yet, by being similar to the first Creature (from Victor's perspective, from hers John Clare is similar to Victor-a man, I could delve into Brona's sexuality, but later, this thing is already way longer than I intended) she's 'the man' he wanted.

There is also Henry. Henry Jekyll takes the role of his namesake in the novel, Henry Clerval, Victor's closest friend, and a character most often cited to have homoerotic tension with Victor. It's true that some of the eroticism might be accidental, stemming from the prevalence of homosocial interactions in 'Frankenstein' which in turn is a result of misogynistic nature of 19th century Genevian society and in-novel universe reflecting it, but like I mentioned before, it still feeds into the queer reading of the text and translates beautifully into Jekyll and Victor being both extremely misogynistic towards Lily and their mutual homoerotic tension. In the scenes where Henry purposes his plan to Victor he practically seductively purrs it into his ear, Lily becomes merely a female buffer that allows for that interaction, a female presence which is an excuse for male closeness (here I have a couple of examples actually: Dead Ringers, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Scream (in a roundabout way, through murder) and a couple others, but that deserves its own article). I won't even mention more references to the novel, because that's a lot already.

Penny Dreadful, although I believe largely unintentionally, expands on what is already there through the changes it introduces in relation to the novel's plot. I have nothing else smart to say, I just think it's worth considering.

*I use the word 'queer', because that's the umbrella term we use in academic writing for years now and even our lgbt+ group at university is called 'queer', so don't come at me with stupid takes

[imogentemlt]

like wow can't wait for Tumblr to see how 'something really lgbt just happened to me' Jonathans time at the castle is or fall in love w mina and joke about how she's the only capable one of all these men and learn how van Helsing is actually just a smart old dude instead of a ripped badass hunter and not to mention the meme potential of Texas cowboy Quincey Morris in this eastern European horror tale

[gellavonhamster]

Jack, Quincey, Arthur for character ask meme! (aka Trio with some braincells that mostly just vibing)

Jack:

First impression: Honestly, I don’t remember what I thought of him when I read the book for the first time. I think I liked him, though less than I do now, but I cannot recall what was my very first impression when reading his chapters

Impression now: I love this very flawed but trying-his-best depressed romantic bastard with all my heart

Favorite moment: proposing to Lucy and almost sitting down on his hat and fidgeting with a lancet and overall being the opposite of the “calm”, “resolute”, “imperturbable” picture of him Lucy has literally just painted to Mina, because it’s hilarious and endearing

Idea for a story: *bangs fist on table* I want a prequel about the adventures of Jack, Quincey, and Arthur around the globe, and I want it NOW

Unpopular opinion: I think he handled being rejected by Lucy really well for someone who seems to be in a bad place mentally regardless. All his complaints are confined to his diary, it’s not like he’s going around whining about his broken heart. 

Favorite relationship: My favourite relationship for all three suitors is the three of them together, but I am going to try to say something different in reply to this question for all three of them. So, apart from the Trio with Some Braincells™ (you’re honestly being very generous with “some”, haha), I’m going to single out Jack and Quincey, because I’m going through a very bad case of “character you project on x your type” with them. And I feel slightly bad about it, because it’s pair the spares in a sense, but listen, if I’m not supposed to ship this then why on top of that sweet sweet friends-to-lovers opposites-attract shit everything Jack says about Quincey sounds like the verbal equivalent of the Twink Boutta Pounce meme

Favorite headcanon: All men in his family used to be doctors, so he kind of knew from his very childhood who he wants to be when he grows up. His position as the head of the asylum is probably inherited in some sense, that’s part of the reason why he got it so young (though not the only reason).

Quincey:

First impression: omg they have an American with a Gun, this is going to be fun

Impression now: I’d die for him but he wouldn’t let me

Favorite moment: his letter to Arthur! After reading about two men being rejected and one being favoured by the same lady, a reader would expect to see the three men in question as rivals, probably even hating each other, but then we get Quincey’s very fond, very warm letter, and it subverts all these expectations because SURPRISE, they’re actually friends who go way back and had adventures together and LOVE each other! I wish we got more of his POV in the book.

Idea for a story: I just think this world needs more stories in which he survives

Unpopular opinion: he’s not stupid. I mean, every man in the Crew of Light is a little stupid (affectionate), but you know what, he realized that something or someone must be drinking Lucy’s blood way earlier than Jack, who’s supposed to be the smart one, and he was their strategist when they went to purify Dracula’s coffins. This man is not just muscle 

Favorite relationship: apart from what I’ve already mentioned in Jack’s part of this ask, I really love his friendship with Mina. I think they’re alike in how they try to ease the burdens of the ones they love while suffering themselves and not letting anyone else see this suffering, hence this instant understanding, which manifests in how she meets him for the first time and immediately sees that despite all his toughness, he needs a hug and a kind word, and in how he’s the first to understand what she means when she asks the men to kill her if she turns into a vampire.

Favorite headcanon: he’s the only member of the Crew of Light whose parents are alive throughout the events of the book (if we want to be particularly cruel and canon-compliant, the only one whose parents outlive him). He also has a bunch of siblings, both older and younger, including some older brothers, which gives him an opportunity to keep wandering around the world with those Englishmen because there are other people to take care of whatever it is that makes their family rich (I imagine they definitely have a lot of cattle farms; I also like the idea I saw in one fic that they profit off the oil discovered on their lands). 

Arthur:

First impression: Look, Lucy, to each their own, but... of all three, why him?

Impression now: I have loosely expanded in my head whatever personality Stoker deigned to give him, and now I love him

Favorite moment: his army of dogs, dogs ex machina as I call them

Idea for a story: I’ve made a post about it some time ago but. Will someone write a short cute fic about him giving Lucy a puppy, that would be adorable

Unpopular opinion: I get where people who hate on him for being bland are coming from, but at least he’s nice and brave and did nothing wrong. Also, his best friends are like “adventures fuck yea, let’s shoot at whatever problem we have at hand!” and “what if I conducted this experiment that violates medical ethics”, and I just think that at least someone in this boy band has to be a normie, for the sake of balance

Favorite relationship: again, apart from the three suitors, I really like the father-son relationship he has with Van Helsing

Favorite headcanon: he’s good at socializing and conversing with people and similar things that come with belonging to high society, but it always ends up at a certain point with him being drained of energy, and then he just disappears to spend time alone at his estate, with his dogs and horses and the forest. In general, he loves nature and being in the woods. Unfortunately, that includes passion for hunting.

[latter-day-saint-nick]

I heard that the BBC Dracula adaptation written by Stephen Moffat was really bad, and it made me curious to see just how bad it was, so I decided to watch it for myself. It was not one of my smarter decisions.

But in order that my suffering won’t have been completely in vain, I’ll recap it here for those who are curious as well, to spare you the pain of actually having to watch it. You’re welcome!

Let me describe the viewing experience as best I can.

I have a BBC iPlayer account, so I could watch the show legally. My wife tells me to pirate it instead to avoid giving Moffat the views. She is right. I click on the first episode.

Episode 1

We start with a framing device of a severely ill Jonathan Harker in a Hungarian monastery, telling his story to two nuns. I do not hate this framing device. The original novel was told through diary entries, newspaper articles and letters, so having different characters tell the story of what happened to them to others is a neat way to adapt this type of literary device. The dialogue quickly takes a turn for the ridiculous, though, when one of the nuns, Sister Agatha, asks Jonathan in a silly accent if he had sexual intercourse with Count Dracula. Because queerbaiting? Is vampirism an STD now?

Still, the show tricks us into thinking that it’s going to be a fairly straightforward adaptation of the story as Jonathan recounts how he arrived at the castle, met the Count and became his prisoner. Later, this will turn out to be a sweet, sweet lie, but I don’t know that yet. At first, Dracula looks about a hundred years old and has a bad Romanian accent, but the more he feeds on Jonathan, the younger he gets, and the more refined and posh his British accent. Because this Dracula does not just absorb his victims’ lifeforce but also their knowledge. I find that stupid.

Dracula says the famous “I do not drink... wine” line. Badly. Still, the reference is mildly cute the first time. He repeats the line several times throughout the show, and it gets progressively less funny each time.

Jonathan reads a letter from his fiancee, Mina. In it, she jokes about how she’s going to sleep with all the cute men in the neighbourhood while he’s gone, as well as the adorable bar maiden, if she needs some variety. I sigh as I realize that this is probably what Moffat considers good queer representation.

At one point Jonathan talks about falling asleep, and Sister Agatha proceeds to ask him if he had dirty dreams about his fiancee. She persists with the question, even after Jonathan tells her that that’s private. It doesn’t seem like a pertinent question, but I guess Sister Agatha is just a pervert. Or maybe Moffat is.

Jonathan finishes his story about how he escaped from the castle. He bemoans that he can’t go home to England, because he is such a changed man and he can’t even remember his fiancee’s face. Sister Agatha reveals that the other nun with her is actually Mina. What a tweest! Apparently even before Jonathan told his story, Sister Agatha managed to figure out that he is English, tracked him down, found his fiancee and had her brought over to Budapest. The show is clearly hoping that the unexpectedness of this twist is going to distract us from the fact that it makes no damn sense at all.

It also turns out that Jonathan has become a vampire, and the sight of blood nearly makes him attack Mina. Of course, being one of the main heroes, he was never turned in the novel, not that that matters.

At this point Dracula shows up at the gates of the monastery in the form of a wolf. And I don’t mean that he shapeshifts like an Animorph. He is literally inside the wolf’s body, and he claws his way out of it, emerging at the gates naked and covered in wolf blood. I really don’t know why.

He and Sister Agatha proceed to have a sass-off. My wife makes fun of the dialogue by saying that it’s basically this:

“I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!” “Yeah, but I’m a badass sister!” “Yeah, but I’m Dracula!”

By the time my wife has finished the joke, the banter is still going on. It feels like it’s never going to end.

The Mother Superior tells the nuns to arm themselves. My wife starts wondering if we’re actually watching a Mel Brooks movie. Also, Sister Agatha is revealed to be Van Helsing. This is not as meaningful as the show seems to think it is, as she and Dracula haven’t had any past encounters. So it’s really just, “Oh, she’s actually a gender-swapped character from the book. That’s cool, I guess.

Finally, Dracula slinks off because he can’t get inside the monastery without being invited. He manages to find Jonathan, now fully a vampire, at a window and gets him to invite him in. You’d think this would be the end of the stupidity, but clearly I haven’t suffered enough yet.

Jonathan finds Mina and Sister Agatha. Sister Agatha tries to fend him off, since he’s, you know, a vampire and tried to feed off of Mina earlier. Mina, however, believes that the power of love can save him, so she approaches him. I point out that in the book, Mina was characterized as being very intelligent, not that that matters. As it turns out, it wasn’t Jonathan at all, but Dracula, wearing Jonathan’s skin, which he rips off, like something out of Hellraiser. He never uses this power again in the rest of the series.

The episode ends with him attacking the two women. Against my better judgement, I decide to watch the next episode, because while this was bad, it was bad in a fascinating way. Almost like something Tommy Wiseau would make. Okay, maybe not. Tommy Wiseau as Dracula would have been a lot more entertaining.

I click on the next episode.

Episode 2

We start with another framing device. This time Dracula is telling the story of his voyage to London to Sister Agatha while they’re playing chess. See, it’s symbolic, because they’re having a game of wits where they’re trying to outsmart each other! Okay, to be honest, I have no idea what Sister Agatha is trying to do. I guess Moffat is too clever for me.

Sister Agatha asks Dracula how he got to England. He tells her that he went on a ship. Inexplicably, this is not the end of that, but he proceeds to tell her about everything that happened on the ship, including conversations between characters that he wasn’t there for. Maybe he was listening at their doors.

I sense impending doom when I realize that this boat journey is going to take up the entire episode. In the book, it only took up a few pages, not that that matters.

Rather than staying in his coffin in the hold during the day, as he does in the book (not that that matters), Dracula mingles with the passengers. When Sister Agatha expresses surprises at that, he comments on how stupid it would be to stay in his coffin in the hold. You know, more adaptations should have lines about how stupid the source material is. It makes you look so smart.

How does Dracula avoid the sunlight during the day, though? Never fear, he simply spits out a pall of fog that surrounds the ship at all times and blocks out the sunlight, because I guess that’s a power he has. Like his wearing of other creatures’ skin, it’s not one he ever uses again, though. He tells Sister Agatha, “Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you.” Because referencing songs from a hundred years in the future is apparently also a power that he has.

We are introduced to the other passengers, who are a surprisingly diverse bunch. I can’t get too excited about this, however, as I know that they are all going to die. One of the passengers is an Indian doctor who has encountered the undead in the past. That would probably make for a more interesting story than this one, but then again, I don’t really want Moffat to tell it, so I don’t know why I’m complaining.

Dracula starts killing off crew and passengers one by one. I keep expecting the show to cut back to the chess game, with him telling Sister Agatha, “To make a long story short, I killed them all.”

The passengers begin to fear a killer on board, but never seem to suspect Dracula, who plays them against each other. They also discover that they’re all travelling to England at the behest of the same mysterious benefactor, who of course is Dracula, using a pseudonym. Because he hand-picked all of them for the special qualities he would gain from drinking their blood or something. It is way more convoluted than it needs to be. Is Moffat capable of writing a protagonist who is not an arrogant white man too clever for everyone around him? We may never know...

Throughout the episode there’s references to an unseen invalid staying in cabin 9. It turns out to be Sister Agatha, whom Dracula has been steadily draining. The chess game is just a hallucination that he induces in her while he drinks her blood. What a tweest!

Just like in the previous episode, the framing device is dropped about two-thirds through and we are now seeing the story in present tense. Dracula frames Sister Agatha as being the mystery killer, but she manages to reveal that he is a vampire just as she is about to get hanged by the crew. They manage to fend him off, but not before a few more characters die by being incredibly stupid.

One of the characters is a young English lord who just got married to a rich heiress, but is secretly having an affair with an African man pretending to be his servant. I can never remember his name, so I call him Gaylord (I’m allowed to make jokes like this). Gaylord is Dracula’s new business partner and he betrays the rest of the humans, because he thinks Dracula is his BFF and values his skills as a businessman. As it turns out, Dracula only chose Gaylord because of his wife’s wealth. Now that he has killed her, her money goes to Gaylord, and by draining Gaylord, it goes to Dracula. I was unaware that being someone’s business partner entitles you to inherit all their money after their death, so I assume that Dracula acquires people’s money by drinking their blood, just like he acquires their skills and attributes.

Sister Agatha assumes command over the ship, using her divine nun powers, I guess, and she prepares for Dracula to return and finish off the rest of the humans. I get bored and finish a chapter in a book I was reading earlier.

Eventually Sister Agatha blows up the ship to prevent Dracula from ever reaching England, which they keep referring to as “the New World”. That’s not what that term means, but who cares at this point? Dracula, encased in one of his boxes, sinks to the bottom of the ocean, only to break out and walk the rest of the way to England along the ocean floor. There he is greeted by cars and helicopters and someone who looks like Sister Agatha, but wearing modern clothes. What a tweest!  Did it take him a hundred years to break out of his casket, or is this like The Village, where we were in modern times all along? The episode ends here, so I guess I’ll have to watch the next one to find out.

I am curious to see this stupidity unfold, but not sure I can take any more right now. But my wife applies some peer pressure, and I put on the final episode. Pray for me!

Episode 3

The previous two episodes were pretty bad, yes, but mostly in a way I can handle and even laugh at. They have not at all prepared me for what I am about to witness.

This episode doesn’t have a framing device, which makes me wonder why we bothered with those in the other two.

The Sister Agatha clone turns out to be her great-grandniece, Zoe. So it’s like Back to the Future where people keep having relatives who look exactly like them. Except Back to the Future is a comedy, and this is meant to be taken seriously.

Dracula escapes from the Anti-Dracula Brigade on the beach and breaks into some poor woman’s home after killing her husband and stuffing him in the fridge. I’m not sure if this is meant to be funny or scary. It ends up being neither. Dracula kills the woman as well, after lecturing her for taking all her modern-day luxuries for granted. Social commentary, I guess?

We are introduced to Seward, a young medical student who makes up for his lack of personality with a creepy obsession with his friend, a vapid, selfish party girl. Yes, this is Lucy Westenra. I found her a likable character in the novel. Not that that matters. I call this Lucy a slut, only for Lucy to make a comment on slut-shaming, which makes me feel bad. The irony is that I’m pretty sure we’re meant to see Lucy as slutty and shallow.

We’re also introduced to Quincey. He’s a douchebag. In the novel he was kind, brave and heroic. Not that that... whatever.

Seward is contacted by the Anti-Dracula Brigade, which is actually called the Jonathan Harker Foundation, but I prefer Anti-Dracula Brigade. It was formed by Sister Agatha’s relatives and Mina Murray with the goal to find Dracula and then to keep him alive to study him. I honestly would have thought that Mina would want Dracula dead, after he terrorized her and murdered her fiance, rather than sticking him in a cage for science, but it’s not like character motivations have to make sense. After all, this is Moffat, bitch!

Van Helsing explains to her students that Dracula was in suspended animation for over a hundred years at the bottom of the ocean until she accidentally woke him by sticking her fingers in his mouth, which allowed him to draw blood and be renewed. She doesn’t explain why her Anti-Dracula Brigade consists of medical students, rather than experts in their fields. She also doesn’t explain why he didn’t grow old again, like he was at the start of episode 1, after not having had anything to eat for over 120 years.

Dracula has been caught and is contained in a cell at the Brigade’s headquarters. I honestly don’t remember how that happened. Did they forget to show us that or did I just black out? Both seem like likely options. The cell contains what I assume is a Kindle, to keep Dracula occupied. Van Helsing comes to talk to him, and he scoffs at the idea of a woman being in charge. She tells him that he slept through the women’s rights movement. I am paralyzed with fear that Moffat is going to attempt to explain women’s rights to me. Why would God test me like this? My relief knows no bounds when the characters change the subject immediately. God is good after all.

This reprieve doesn’t last long. My faith is once again tested when I am forced to witness one of the most idiotic scenes I have ever had the misfortune to watch on screen. It begins when Renfield is brought in. I know that a Dracula adaptation turning silly when Renfield is introduced is not unusual, but Moffat always strives to exceed expectations of ridiculousness. In this version Renfield is Dracula’s lawyer, working for the same firm that he hired 120 years ago when Jonathan was their representative. They have been Skyping, using what I thought was a Kindle, but turns out to be a proper tablet. It wasn’t supposed to be connected to the internet, but all Dracula had to do was guess the WiFi password. Which was his own name.

I cannot deal with this. This scene has broken me. I am a broken man. I cry out in anguish and despair, for what else can I do? My wife, who has gone to the kitchen to get herself a drink, comes to see if I am okay. I am not. I may never be okay again. Moffat has marred my soul forever.

Renfield argues that the Anti-Dracula Brigade is keeping Dracula against his will and that he hasn’t actually done anything illegal, so they are forced to set him free. On the way out, Dracula finds Seward’s phone and uses it to meet up with Lucy. There’s also something about Van Helsing having cancer and drinking some of Dracula’s blood in the hopes that it will cure her. I don’t really care about this, but it’s important to the plot.

There’s a time-skip of a few months. Lucy is engaged to Quincey, but still sneaks off regularly for dates with Dracula where she lets him feed off her. I suspect that this is Moffat’s attempt at making the character more feminist. You see, instead of just passively being attacked by Dracula in her sleep at night, she actively goes out to find him and chooses to be drained by him! This does not make her a better character. Really, it just makes her seem stupid as well as callous, since she doesn’t give a damn about any of Dracula’s other victims who don’t give him consent to drink their blood.

There is a very annoying reference to the novel when a vampire child calls Lucy “Bloofer Lady”. Like the wine line, it sounds more stupid every time the show repeats it. Also, the vampire kid shows up in one more scene before Dracula kills him. Glad he served a point.

Dracula finally drains Lucy. Her family holds a funeral, thinking that she’s dead. But as she’s been infected with vampirism, she is fully conscious while she is being cremated. So we get to watch her burn alive, screaming in pain all the while. Hey, did I mention that Lucy is played by a black actress? Remember in season 10 of Doctor Who when something terrible would happen to Bill Potts every other episode, like having a hole shot through her chest or being turned into a Cyberman? Now, I’m not saying that Moffat enjoys having horrifying things happen to his black female characters... but I’m not not saying it either.

Lucy escapes from her coffin and takes revenge on the crematorium workers. During this scene we only see her reflection, in which she looks normal, which makes it painfully obvious that this is only how she sees herself, and in reality she’s going to be revealed to be horribly burned. The show plays coy with this for an annoyingly long time.

Van Helsing, still dying of cancer, breaks out of the hospital with help from Seward and they go visit Dracula in his flat. Yes, Dracula has a flat. It’s not hidden or anything. It’s even listed in the phone book. Look, it’s almost over, so who cares?

Lucy shows up as well and after more pointless build-up, we finally get to see her real appearance, which, surprise, surprise, is horribly burned. She is oblivious to this, because vampires’ reflections are weird in a way that is never really explained. Dracula sees himself in the mirror as old and decaying, whereas Lucy sees herself as being still pretty. I don’t know what it means, apart from that Moffat doesn’t understand vampire mythology and feels that it needs to be made more interesting.

Seward encourages Lucy to take a selfie, which reveals her true face. Why the rules for cameras are different from the rules for mirrors is not explained either. Lucy breaks down crying because being ugly is a fate worse than death. Seward tells her that he still wants to kiss her, because I guess this was meant to be the message? Something about true love? She begs him for death. They kiss and he mercy-kills her. In the book the people who loved Lucy had to kill her to save her immortal soul and to protect the world from the monster she had become, which has a bit more emotional resonance than saving her from having to be ugly for eternity. But, you know. NOT THAT THAT MATTERS.

Van Helsing sends Seward away for her final confrontation with Dracula, because she has him figured out. Having the memories of her great-aunt Agatha within her, which she gained from drinking Dracula’s blood, which he gained from drinking Agatha’s blood, she exposits that Dracula isn’t actually harmed by sunlight or crosses. He just fears death more than anything and so he doesn’t like the sight of the cross which represents someone being willing to die. Okay, but that doesn’t explain his aversion to sunlight! What does that have to do with death? She also spouts off some nonsense about how his fear of death originated from being the weakest in a family of noblemen and soldiers. Um, Moffat? You do realize that Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler, right? Someone who was known for, well, impaling his enemies? But, again, it’s almost over, so let’s just get on with it!

Van Helsing tells Dracula that because she is dying of cancer, she is accomplishing the one thing he is afraid of doing, which somehow convinces him to kill himself by drinking her cancerous blood, which is poison to him. To make this experience painless for her, he creates an illusion for her where they’re, um, tenderly making love? What the hell? Is that what all their previous scenes were leading up to? Okay, if you say so.

Wait, is that the real reason why Moffat made Van Helsing a woman? Screw you, Moffat! Screw you so much!

Credits roll. This ends one of the worst television viewing experiences I’ve ever had. I go on YouTube to rewatch Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here’s Why. It is deeply cathartic.

[spider-xan]

At the risk of opening myself up to misreadings bc I didn't go into enough extreme detail like I usually would to clearly explain myself and cover my ass, and being less diplomatic than usual, I think some of us just want some damn moral consistency! If you are going to (rightfully!) call out that Van Helsing is espousing ableist, racist, sexist, etc. eugenics, then you better be doing the same for Mina, considering she was enthusiastically sharing the exact same awful beliefs! She doesn't get a pass just bc she's a nice white lady, nor should you bend over backwards to try and argue that well actually, she is very progressive and only said awful things bc the big strong men were forcing her to do it, which would be at odds with the inaccurate super girlboss who takes no shit from the men readings that usually accompany these mental gymnastics to morally justify or sanitize her flawed moments!

And both of them are ultimately narrative devices written by a Victorian white man who was too interested in eugenics and thought it would be a great way to show how smart and like-minded both characters are, so there is that meta framework as well, but it should be applied consistently, not just for your faves to make them look better by comparison! No one in this novel is going to be without bigotry and biases, and that includes Mina, who has so far shown internalized misogyny and an interest in eugenics, and, I am sorry to say, is going to be using racist slurs as we move into the final part of the novel! And no, I am not saying that you have to hate and wish death on her like some people do on Van Helsing for his issues to be fair, or that you have to write posts about her being evil, or include a disclaimer on every post about her! Just be consistent in your critiques, and if you are not, then ask yourself why you have a double standard, and if it really is a situation where a double standard is justified!

[vanhelsingenthusiast]

question of genuine curiosity: i love van helsing & scrolled a considerable way through yr blog & seen lots of drac/vanhel shipping which never would've occurred to me as a ship. i tried to figure out what the draw was by looking at yr posts but it was usually like headcanons that didnt explain the ship's initial draw. so what draws you to it? also u said sth abt drac/vanhel being stoker self insert/his boss?? what??? thx for yr patience w yr local noob (if ppl even say noob anymore)

Hi! Thanks for the question! 

This is kinda funny because it’s not something I’ve ever thought about before. I guess I ship them because I’m gay and have unresolved trauma. 

Lol, jk (I mean, those things are true). I think I just really like the idea of enemies to lovers? Idk. I just think the idea of Van Helsing having to kill Dracula whilst also being in love or whatever with him is just,,,,such an interesting idea. Plus the idea of Dracula being soft and in love out of nowhere when he hasn’t been for centuries and all of a sudden having to deal with all these emotions is also very interesting. 

Idk, I think part of the appeal of shipping Dracula with anyone is, like, exploring these themes of someone who has been “living” for themselves for centuries, and has been completely selfish and self sustaining now having to grapple with the idea that they’re in love with someone (whatever that means for them), and having to deal with all the emotions of it. It’s an interesting character arc. 

Shipping Dracula with Van Helsing, in my opinion, makes sense and is interesting because Van Helsing is probably the only person in the book who can keep up with him intellectually (Mina is smart enough but I wouldn’t say she’s learned enough, though she could be), and also the only person who is, like, disciplined enough to actually be able to deal with him, and also the only person that Dracula really respects. 

 I imagine Dracula would be fairly emotionally turbulent, and he needs someone who is levelheaded and patient enough to deal with that in a healthy way, and also who likes him enough and gets enough out of the relationship to want to help him, and I think that person is Van Helsing.* (Part of the reason why I don’t like DracMina is because she isn’t experienced enough to do that, imo, but that’s a different post altogether). And then them being enemies just gives some interesting dynamics to work with. 

Ok, well that was long-winded. Now onto the “Van Helsing is a self-insert for Bram Stoker” thing: 

So, admittedly, this is just, like, a theory and not something that Stoker ever admitted to, but it does make some sense for a few reasons: 

~ Abraham was Stoker’s full first name (also his fathers first name). 

~ Van Helsing was described to look a bit like Stoker (red hair, blue eyes, etc.)

~ He’s basically an overbeefed (?) NPC, and is a lot like a Mary Sue (I think the masculine is Gary Sue). Which, like, Mary Sue’s aren’t really real, but usually an overpowered character is an indication of an authorial self-insert. That being said, Van Helsing *does* have issues, but they’re issues that would not have been considered issues in the Victorian Era (re: he’s kinda mysoginistic, though admittedly not as much as some other characters).

One theory that is in this same vein is also that Dracula is an insert/was based on Stoker’s boss, Henry Irving. Also, some people think Stoker was in love with Irving (which is also another post, lol).  Basically: 

~ Irving was set to play Dracula in a stage adaptation (which he declined because he hated the book). 

~ Dracula is described to look a bit like Irving (bushy curly hair, bushy eyebrows, big nose, strong face, etc.) 

~ Dracula and Irving have some similar character traits, especially in the way Dracula is described as being spellbinding (which he also described Irving as), etc. 

Personally, I don’t think these things were intentional. Like, I don’t think Stoker thought “I’m going to make *myself* the hero :)”, or “I’m going to make *my boss* the villain :)”. I think he just wrote the characters he wanted to see and that interested him and there just happened to be a lot of similarities, but I do think the similarities are important to keep in mind when analyzing the book. 

Anyways, this was very long and I’m so sorry (but honestly, every answer I give to an ask ends up being really long, lol. What do y’all expect from me?). I hope this answered your questions! And thanks for giving my blog a look :) 

*Disclaimer: I don’t ship them in a toxic relationship type of way. Someone can be very emotional (due to trauma, mental illness, or no reason at all) and still be a wonderful, loving partner. Just because someone is emotional doesn’t mean they’re bad. I’m also not trying to say that all of your emotional needs should fall onto your partner, but saying that someone can’t lean on their partner for support is just not true. My opinions are a bit more nuanced so if someone has any more questions pls send me an ask abt it!